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AN 



ADDRESS 



ON THE CHAKACTERS OF 



LAFAYETTE AND WASHINGTON: 



FRONODNCED BEFORE THE 



") WASHINGTON SOCIETY 



LAFAYETTE COLLEGE, 

EASTON, PA., ON JULY 4, 1840. 



ZS"^ — * 



Y WILLIS GAY LORD CLARK. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

J. CRTSSY, PRINTER, NO. 4 MINOR STREET. 
1840. 



V 



Washington Hall, July 4, 1840. 
Willis Gatiord CiAKK, Esa. 
Eespected Sir : 

Ik behalf of the Washikgtos- Literary Society, we tender 
you our sincere thanks for the very interesting and appropriate Address 
which we had the pleasure of hearing from you this morning, and so- 
licit a copy of the same for publication. 

Yours truly, 

JAMES SNODGEASS, 
AUGUSTUS G. RICHEY, 
H. C. LONGNECKER. 

Committee. 



Philadelphia, Septem.her 1840. 



Gentlemek : 



The verbal promise which I made you at Easton, that I would 
write you an official answer to your very flattering note, from Philadel- 
phia, was given, as you are aware, in the hope that you would allow my 
Address the privilege of remaining in manuscript : but your repeated 
solicitations since, have impelled me to submit it to your disposal. 
That it was produced in very great haste, you know ; and my public 
duties have granted me no time for its revision. 

I offer it to you, therefore, as a performance which I hope may 
be excused, because the beauty and brightness of the subjects make all 
new tropes or figures usual to the mind in their discussion, and defy 
originality. The only pride I feel in it is, that it has acquainted me 
with yourselves, and your associates ; with the magnificent scenery 
which the neighbourhood of yotir University commands ; with the warm 
and pleasant hospitality of Easton at large, and with so many of its in- 
telligent, cultivated inhabitants. 

I remain, Gentlemen, with great regard. 
Yours, very truly, 

WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK. 

To Messrs. Snodgrass, 
Richet, and 

LoNGNECKEH, 

Committee Washington Literary Society. 



ADDRESS. 

Feiiow-citizens, 

And gentlemen op the Washington Society, 

The events which bring a Nation up, as it were, 
on one day simultaneously together, to worship 
near the high altars dedicated by virtuous patriot- 
ism to the genius of liberty, and the expansion of 
the dear rights of mankind, are, of all others, the 
most ennobling. They constitute the landmarks 
by which Republics are guided in their career; 
they furnish the test whereby men of eminence in 
a state are tried, and distinguished, or forgotten. 
On any day, connected with the history of a great 
man who has done good to his country, there 
teems a consecrated interest. Why is it, that on 
certain occasions in the experience of every coun- 
try but those which are purely despotic, the uni- 
versal heart of the people throbs forth in sympa- 
thetic unison; that men and women gather toge- 
ther, the one with their energy and pride of pre- 
sence, the other with the graces and blandish- 
ments, which give superior beauty and glow to 
existence,— to celebrate, perhaps the release of a 
continent, an empire, or a section, from bonds and 



confusion, into brightness, and liberty, and peace, 
and to remember, with pleasure and pride, the lofty 
spirits who ministered to so glorious a consumma- 
tion ? Why is it, that on such occasions, even re- 
verence wants language, and the spirit of Eulogy 
has neither boundary nor curb? It is because, in 
a just-minded nation, those who mourn, must 
triumph together ; because, where we lament the 
upright and the lost, we can yet reverence and 
cherish their example for the living. 

In addressing an Association such as that before 
which I have now the honour to appear, and which 
combines, with its own title, that of the institu- 
tion of which it is, in one high sense, a part, it is 
impossible, that on a day like this, I could perceive, 
with regard to the distinguished and immortal 
names of Lafayette and Washington, a divided 
duty of remembrance. They were both soldiers of 
Liberty; both were in the van-guard of independ- 
ence and of freedom ; and how few things may be 
said of the one, which are not equally due to the 
other! Let it be our task, then, humbly to develope 
the greatness and the goodness evinced in the 
course of each; briefly to show forth the high and 
holy motives by which they were guided — the 
honourable means and influence they employed in 
pursuing the adv^antages of which each was sue- 



cessfully the seeker and guide ; and the manner 
in which, after well-spent lives, they were enabled 
to look back upon the fruits of their labours with 
contentment concerning the past, and glorious hopes 
for the future. 

In the College and the Society bearing these two 
names, there is discernible, in their very adoption^ 
the spirit of consistent and faithful freedom. La- 
fayette and Washington, though born in different 
countries, and under different auspices, were yet 
kindred spirits. They were reapers, sent forth into 
the abundant harvest-field of revolutionary triumph. 
Each of these immortal men seemed conscious 
that he had come into the world, with lofty acts 
depending on his soul and arm, and which he must 
fulfil. History tells how they were carried to their 
completion. 

In treating of the character of Lafayette, it has 
been too much the custom of our writers and 
speakers to refer, with more particularity and em- 
phasis, to the course of greatness and benefit which 
he pursued here so brilliantly on American ground, 
and in the infancy of the American republic, — even 
when, though a republic in spirit, it had not quite 
acquired to itself the name. But fondly and grate- 
fully as we may dwell upon those crises and adven- 
tures in his wonderful history, there is a double 



6 

beauty in his earliest and latest efforts for liberty at 
Home. He was ever on the side of just laws; but 
against tyranny of every name, he waged perpetual 
warfare. Of high birth, and exalted, noble con- 
nexions, the false chivalry and deceptions of Courts 
appeared to have no charm for his frank and open 
mind. His aspirations were of a higher order. 
Who, in England's history — I speak with no invidi- 
ous comparisons between that country and France — 
has appeared with the same outset, blandishments, 
and inducements to engage in the cause of royal suc- 
cessions, ever turned in his mind, to make them 
consonant with the cause of freedom, or else to 
leave them? 

When, in the calm surveys of history. Time seems 
to yield up his trophies, and Death to restore the 
mouldered victims of his voiceless band; and we read 
of the crimes that cursed, or the bright deeds that 
blessed a century, we can draw our comparisons 
between the man who is merely great from ambi- 
tion, without being good, or he who is at once, in 
uniform act and intention, from youth to age, both 
great and good together. Let us, for example, com- 
pare the deaths of Cromwell, or Richard, of Bos- 
worth field, and that of Lafayette at La Grange, 
Cromwell, full of unquenchable passions, was fierce 
and desperate to the last; and how died he, who, 



with Plantagenets, and turmoils, and murders, held 
his very life a mystery, to be solved as Fate might 
utter, caring not for deeds of darkness or a wounded 
name ? Roll back the tide of years, and see him : — 
the fragrance of Summer is in his nostrils as he 
gazes through the midnight upon the watchfires of 
the armies, and hears the armourers accomplishing 
the knights, and the neighing war-horse waiting for 
the noise of the captains and the shouting : but his 
spirit is ill at ease ; the merit of defeat which is 
due him, he knows full well : and the light of his 
star has a baleful significance, as he sinks to his 
troubled rest. Then, 

Mark the sceptred traitor slumbering ! 

Thei'e flit the slaves of Conscience round ; 
With boding tongue foul murders numbering — 
Sleep's leaden portals catch the sound. 
In his dream of blood, for mercy quaking, 
At his own dull scream ! behold him waking ! 
Hark ! the trumpet's warning breath. 
Echoes round that vale of death. 
Unhorsed, unhelmed, disdaining shield. 
The panting tyrant scours the field. 

Vengeance ! he meets thy dooming blade ! 
The scourge of earth, the scorn of Heaven — 
He falls — unwept and unforgiven. 
And all his guilty glories fade. 
Like a crushed reptile in the dust he lies. 
And Hate's last lightnings quiver from his eyes ! 

Sprague's Ode to Shakspeare. 



8 

Thus perished one of the most famous dukes of 
England ! How did the Marquis of La Grange 
expire ? As the setting sun descends to his beauti- 
ful evening pavilion, vs^ith gorgeous companies of 
clouds waiting around him, until in the bright 
waters of the West, he sinks to " where his islands 
of refreshment lie !" 

When Lafayette came to America, with a noble 
apprehension in his heart, that our great crisis 
could not transact itself without him, his native 
land was just fermenting into a condition, wherein, 
if he had been so basely-minded, he might have 
attained an eminence, commanding half that king- 
dom. What he did here, we know; how he co- 
operated with the "Saviour of his Country," for 
her good ; the wounds of his green youth, at Bran- 
dywine ; his coping with Cornwallis, who declared 
that " the boy should not escape him;" his forced 
marches to Virginia; the liberality with which he 
poured out, like water, his treasure and credit for 
the welfare of those troops, who were but too happy 
to serve under him ; the siege of Yorktown ; his 
repeated return, after his first visit, together with his 
efforts in Spain to assist the American cause, which 
peace happily rendered unnecessary : — these facts 
are but household words, on American tongues. 
Thank Heaven ! they are words that come from the 



heart, and yet have no gloss of newness, or of 
momentary show. Let us bear in mind, that on his 
last return, but one, to France, after being elected 
to the membership of the National Assembly, he 
was appointed the Commander-in-chief of the Na- 
tional Guards of Paris, two days after the celebrated 
attack upon the Bastile. How might the effect of 
this attack have worked upon the mind of a hero, 
wrongly ambitious ? 

History answers this question, in the biography of 
so many persons, that it would demand and deserve 
volumes to chronicle, either their doings or the 
consequences of those doings. Recorders or an- 
nalists, Bailly, Dusaulx, Besanval ; not to name 
innumerable others, by letter or printed page, kept 
up the record of that dreadful time, as pictures for 
posterity. How triumphantly could Lafayette 
have careered upon that storm — not only with glory, 
but without danger ? And yet, politically speaking, 
it was, for a season, the Eurodydon of France. 
Even in our far-off western America — " our own 
green forest-land," — the scenes of the Kevolution in 
France were familiar to youthful minds, and eyes, 
and reveries ; and the keeper who let forth " The 
Aged Prisoner, Released from the Bastile," was 
ranked with Giant Despair, of Doubting Castle, 
in the '"Pilgrim's Progress" of Bunyan, who 
2 



10 

accidentally condescended to sleep, or be indif- 
ferent, or otherwise engaged, while his victims 
were departing. 

Such were even the rudest notions here, 
of an event which struck awe through France. 
It awakens our highest admiration of Lafay- 
ette, that while he might have profited in wield- 
ing, at this moment, the Parisian populace at will, 
he sought no power, not justly and purely de- 
rived. The flag of France received, at that time, 
as it were, from his hand, the last emblem of the tri- 
colour ; and his prophecy has been fulfilled, that it 
passes in triumph around the world. He had seen, 
in America, that honest revolution was not disobe- 
dient to honest domestic laws ; and with that glo- 
rious lesson before him, he followed it in practice to 
the utmost, until his death. He showed, in all 
things, that he was in very deed, a repuhlican. In 
opposing, with Bailly, the Jacobin club ; in swear- 
ing, in the name of four millions of National Guards, 
fidelity to the Constitution ; in advocating the ex- 
tinction of empty titles of nobility, and renouncing 
his own; in the dungeons of Austria; in his watch- 
ful, yet characteristic course with that great captain 
of his age. Napoleon ; in the revolution of eighteen 
hundred and thirty — and in the serene decline of his 
many and useful years — who, and how few, of the 



11 

various military and civic dignitaries, that in Europe 
have risen, and shone, and fell, have been his pa- 
rallel? 

It has been said by a distinguished and far-reach- 
ing spirit of the nineteenth century, that there is 
that within the life of the humblest mortal, which, 
well considered, would furnish forth the substance 
and material of an epic poem. If that be true, that 
must be a daring mind, a mind of utter leisure, and 
with a strong and sustaining wing, which would 
attempt to pour forth, in verse, the deeds of daring 
and of greatness, of comprehensive benevolence, 
and Christian virtue, which signalized Lafayette. 
What an extended and chanceful picture unfolds 
itself, in connexion with his last visit to our shores ! 
A boundless continent, which, when he had before 
come among us, was the abode of a terrified popu- 
lation ; of wild beasts of prey, and wilder savages, 
glutting, whensoever and wheresoever they could, 
their thirst for human blood — had begun to bud and 
bloom, and blossom as the rose. Cities, towns, and 
villages, had sprung up to beautify the waste places 
of the republic; and where streams which might 
cross the Atlantic, were, beforetime, shadowed with 
interminable forests, he beheld the smoking chariots 
of Fulton, gliding in their majesty and might ; innu- 
merable marts, gilding and suffusing with life and 



12 

business, the length and breadth of the land : a 
united people ; a sacred constitution ; and the pros- 
pects of a nation, brilliant beyond the utmost blazon 
of the pencil — of the pen. Where the Delaware slept 
near its springs, in calm tranquillity or oversha- 
dowed murmurings, he saw the marks of glorious 
improvements, linking realm with realm in our con- 
federacy; and her institutions, grants, and intellec- 
tual Associations, perpetuating his name. 

Let us now briefly turn to Washington. We can- 
not do the injustice to any here present, to suppose 
it requisite to particularize the great events in the 
career of that incomparable man. But, if this repub- 
lic ever incurs the charge of being ungrateful to her 
largest benefactor, next to the Almighty, it will be 
when it shall be considered repe^2Y20/z to venerate his 
character and laud his deeds. We will not go over 
the red battle-fields of his country, where he shone 
in conquest, or signalized his military stratagie in 
retreat. The whole synthesis, so to speak, of his 
character, was to deserve success, and he ever 
achieved it. The character of Washington was 
such that it overawed those who plotted against him, 
and discomfited his enemies. When he rebuked 
an Arnold, we seem to see, in that office, the action, 
and almost to hear the voice of Cicero against the 



13 

Roman conspirator, while he charged him, in the 
senate, with having, on the previous evening, at 
M. Lucca's house, divided Italy into shares with 
his accomplices — some for the field, and others for 
the capitol. Washington had the power of making 
a corrupt ambition quail before him, at the same 
time that he caused the effects of that ambition, 
through precept, not through example of his ene- 
mies, to operate in his behalf. In this, there was 
something more than the hero. He, who on the 
field of battle, could call his indomitable legions, and 
"perpetual glories round him," in the wars of the 
republic, could, in his walks of peace, invoke the 
co-operation and the counsel of the philosopher and 
the Christian. In the laws of God, he saw and 
recognized the laws of man. He heard the voice of 
the people in favour of a course, upon which he 
could look back, at its close, with satisfaction and 
with pride ; and he recognized it as the voice of 
Heaven, which first called him to the field of conflict, 
and crowned his efforts for his country, with abun- 
dant success. He never knew what it was to falter, 
in any undertaking. With an estimate of chances in 
his mind, which bespoke not only the man of cau- 
tion, but the man of nerve — he shrunk from no 
enterprise. The result showed that he regarded 
the right, which he was to vindicate, in the truest 



14 

light. He knew that he was not labouring for him- 
self; the glory that pertained to the performance of 
genuine duty, he was aware, would accrue to him, in 
an abundant harvest; but this, with him, was a 
secondary consideration. So thoroughly was his 
great mind imbued with the truth, that one who 
devotes himself rightfully and sincerely to his coun- 
try, becomes, of consequence, whether successful or 
unsuccessful, an heir of fame among all the sons of 
freedom, that he acted always on that principle, in 
the midst of the severest trials to which his military 
and civic career was subjected. He replied to 
calumny with silence ; against artful and hidden 
opposition, with which he triumphantly contended, 
he opposed only the shield of his own rectitude, and 
appealed only, as a guaranty for the future, to the 
past records of his career of glory. While state 
after state, combined to do him honour ; after a bril- 
liant military and civic life, he retires to Mount 
Vernon, in quest of his much loved repose, which 
the best of men have ever loved; and like the pure 
Scipio, on the Cumsean shore, addressed them- 
selves in their privacy to the benefit of mankind. 
In this position, as himself did, we have leisure to 
survey the calm brightness of his nature, and the 
inestimable value of the services he had rendered to 
freedom throughout the world. There is an analysis 



15 

of his character, by his friend and faithful adviser, 
and the philosopher of his age, the illustrious Mar- 
shall, which has never been surpassed by any 
American or European pen. Nothing can be added 
to it, without producing tawdry ornament, or blind 
hyperbole ; nothing taken away, without diminishing 
the wonderful and perfect symmetry of the whole. 
"The manners of Washington," he tells us, 
"were rather reserved than free, though they par- 
took nothing of that dryness and sternness which 
accompany reserve, when carried to an extreme; 
and on all proper occasions, he would relax sufii- 
ciently to show how highly he was gratified by the 
charms of conversation, and the pleasures of society. 
His person and whole deportment exhibited an un- 
affected and indescribable dignity, unmingled with 
haughtiness, of which, all who approached him were 
sensible, and the attachment of those who possessed 
his friendship, and enjoyed his intimacy, was ardent, 
but always respectful. His temper was humane, 
benevolent, and conciliatory; but there was quick- 
ness in his sensibility to any thing apparently offen- 
sive, which experience had taught him to watch and 
correct. In the management of his private affairs, 
he exhibited an exact, yet liberal economy. His 
funds were not prodigally wasted on capricious and 
ill-examined schemes, nor refused to beneficial. 



16 

though costly improvements; they remained, there- 
fore, competent to that expensive establishment, which 
his reputation, added to his hospitable temper, had 
in some measure, imposed upon him, and to those 
donations which real distress has a right to claim 
from opulence. He made no pretensions to that 
vivacity which fascinates, or to that wit which dazzles 
and frequently imposes on the understanding. More 
solid than brilliant, judgment rather than genius, 
constituted the most prominent feature of his cha- 
racter. As a military man, he was brave, enter- 
prising, and cautious. That malignity which has 
sought to strip him of all the higher qualities of a 
general, has conceded to him personal courage, and 
a firmness of resolution which neither dangers nor 
difficulties could shake. But candour will allow 
him other great and valuable endowments. If his 
military course does not abound with splendid 
achievements, it exhibits a series of judicious mea- 
sures, adapted to circumstances, which probably 
saved his country. Placed, without having studied 
the theory or been taught in the school of experi- 
ence the practice of war, at the head of an undisci- 
plined, ill-organized multitude, which was unused to 
the restraints, and unacquainted with the ordinary 
duties of a camp ; without the aid of officers pos- 
sessing those lights which the commander-in-chief 



17 

was yet to acquire, it would have been a miracle, 
indeed, had his conduct been altogether faultless. 
But possessing an energetic and distinguishing mind, 
on which the lessons of experience were never lost, 
his errors, if he committed any, were quickly re- 
paired; and those measures which the state of things 
rendered most advisable, were seldom, if ever, ne- 
glected. Inferior to his adversary in the numbers, 
in the equipment, and in the discipline of his troops, 
it is evidence of real merit that no great and decisive 
advantages were ever obtained over him, and the 
opportunity to strike an important blow never pass- 
ed away unused. He has been termed the American 
Fabius; but those who compare his actions with 
his means, will perceive at least as much of Mar- 
cellus as of Fabius in his character. He could not 
have been more enterprising, without endangering 
the cause he defended, nor have put more to hazard, 
without incurring, justly, the imputation of rashness. 
Not relying upon those chances which sometimes 
give a favourable issue to attempts apparently despe- 
rate, his conduct was regulated by calculations, 
made upon the capacities of his army, and the real 
situation of his country. When called a second 
time to command the armies of the United States, a 
change of circumstances had taken place, and he 
meditated a corresponding change of conduct. In 
3 



18 

modeling the army of seventeen hundred and nine- 
ty-eight, he sought for men distinguished for their 
boldness of execution, not less for their prudence 
in council, and contemplated a system of con- 
tinued attack. ' The enemy,' said the General, in 
his private letters, ' must never be permitted to 
gain foothold on our shores.' In his civil admi- 
nistration, as in his military career, were exhibit- 
ed ample and repeated proofs of that practical 
good sense, of that sound judgment, which is, per- 
haps, the most rare, and is certainly the most valu- 
able quality of the human mind. Devoting himself 
to the duties of his station, and pursuing no object 
distinct from the public good, he was accustomed to 
contemplate, at a distance, those critical situations in 
which the United States might probably be placed, 
and to digest, before the occasion required action, 
the line of conduct which it would be proper to ob- 
serve. Taught to distrust first impressions, he 
sought to acquire all the information which was 
attainable, and to hear, without prejudice, all the 
reasons which could be urged for or against a par- 
ticular measure. His own judgment was suspended 
until it became necessary to determine, and his deci- 
sions, thus maturely made, were seldom, if ever, to 
be shaken. His conduct, therefore, was systematic, 
and the great objects of his administration were 



19 

steadily pursued. Respecting, as the first magis- 
trate in a free government must ever do, the real 
and deliberate sentiments of the people, their gusts 
of passion passed over vvathout ruffling the smooth 
surface of his mind. Trusting to the reflecting good 
sense of the nation for approbation and support, he 
had the magnanimity to pursue its real interests in 
opposition to its temporary prejudices, and, though 
far from being regardless of popular favour, he could 
never stoop to retain, by deserving to lose it. In 
more instances than one, we find him committing his 
whole popularity to hazard, and pursuing steadily, 
in opposition to a torrent, which would have over- 
whelmed a man of ordinary firmness, that course 
which had been dictated by a sense of duty. In 
speculation he was a real republican, devoted to the 
constitution of his country, and to that system of 
equal political rights on which it is founded. But 
between a balanced republic and a democracy, the 
difference is like that between chaos and order. 
Real liberty, he thought, was to be preserved only 
by preserving the authority of the laws, and main- 
taining the energy of government. Scarcely did 
society present two characters, which, in his opinion, 
less resembled each other than a patriot and a dema- 
gogue. No man has ever appeared upon the theatre 
of public action whose integrity was more incom- 



20 

patible, or whose principles were more perfectly- 
free from the contamination of those selfish and un^ 
worthy passions which find their nourishment in the 
conflicts of party. Having no views which required 
concealment, his real and avowed motives were the 
same; and his whole correspondence does not fur- 
nish a single case, from which even an enemy would 
infer that he was capable, under any circumstances, 
of stooping to the employment of duplicity. No 
truth can be uttered with more confidence, than that 
his ends were always upright, and his means always 
pure. He exhibits the rare example of a politician, 
to whom wiles were absolutely unknown, and whose 
professions to foreign governments, and to his own 
countrymen, were always sincere. In him, was 
fully exemplified the real distinction which forever 
exists between wisdom and cunning, and the import 
ance, as well as truth of the maxim, that 'honesty- 
is the best policy.' If Washington possessed ambi- 
tion, that passion was, in his bosom, so regulated by- 
principles, or controlled by circumstances, that it 
was neither vicious or turbulent. Intrigue was 
never employed as the means of its gratification, 
nor was personal aggrandizement its object. The 
various high and important stations to which he was 
called by the public voice, were unsought by him^ 
self: and in consenting to fill them, he seems rather 



21 

to have yielded to a general conviction that the 
interest would be thereby promoted, than to his 
particular inclination. Neither the extraordinary 
partiality of the American people, the extravagant 
praises which were bestowed upon him, nor the in- 
veterate opposition and malignant calumnies which 
he experienced, had any visible influence on his 
conduct. The cause is to be looked for in the tex- 
ture of his mind. In him, that innate and unassum- 
ing modesty, which adulation would have offended, 
which the voluntary plaudits of millions could not 
betray into indiscretion, and which never obtruded 
upon others his claims to superior consideration, 
was happily blended with a high and correct sense 
of personal dignity, and with a just consciousness of 
that respect which is due to station. Without exer- 
tion, he could maintain the happy medium between 
that arrogance which wounds, and that facility which 
allows the office to be degraded in the person who 
fills it. It is impossible to contemplate the great 
events which have occurred in the United States, 
under the auspices of Washington, without ascribing 
them, in some measure, to him. If we ask the 
causes of the prosperous issue of a war, against the 
successful termination of which there were so many 
probabilities ; of the good which was produced, and 
the ill which was avoided during an administration 



fated to contend with the strongest prejudices that 
a combination of circumstances, and of passions 
could produce ; of the constant favour of the great 
mass of his fellow-citizens, and of the confidence 
which, to the last moment of his life, they reposed 
in him---the answer, so far as these causes may be 
found in his character, will furnish a lesson well 
meriting the attention of those who are candidates 
for fame. Endowed by nature with a sound judg- 
ment, and an accurate, discriminating mind, he 
feared not that laborious attention which made him 
perfectly master of those subjects, in all their rela- 
tions, on which he was to decide ; and this essential 
quality was guided by an unvarying sense of moral 
rio'ht, which would tolerate the employment only of 
those means that would bear the most rigid examina- 
tions, by a fairness of intention, which neither sought 
nor required disguise, and by a purity of virtue 
which was not only untainted, but unsuspected.'* 

Such was "Washington : a combination and a form 
where every human grace and virtue appeared to 
have set an indelible seal. If we look at the various 
peculiarities of the various great men, for example, 
of the ancient republic, we shall find that he em- 
braced the good ones of them all : 



MB- 3 2 



His was Octavian's prosperous star, 
The rush of Csesar's conquering car. 

At Battle's call; 
His, Scipio's virtue ; his, the skill, 
Aijd the indomitable will 

Of Hannibal. 
The clemency of Antonine, 
And pure Aurelius' love divine : 
In tented field and bloody fray, 
An Alexander's vigorous sway, 

And stern command : 
The faith of Constantine — ay, more — 
The fervent love Camillus bore. 

His native land.* 

But the crowning glory of Washington's course, 
was its close. Nothing could be more glorious than 
such a life, but such a death. Encircled by his 
family; watched by eyes that loved him, and 
attended with tender ministrations, his body parted 
from his soul, and that immortal guest of his earthly 
tabernacle ascended to Heaven. As that hour 
approached, his contentment and peace were inde- 
scribable. He saw, if his thoughts were then mo- 
mentarily of earth, through the long vista of coming 
years, the grandeur and beauty of a new republic, 
made free by his hand; teeming with all kind of 
riches, and filling with a virtuous and well-governed 
people. How beautiful a prospect! We read, of 
late, of the death of a king of Europe, who, when 

" Coplas de Maiirique. 



24 

on his dying pillow, caused a mirror to be placed 
near his bed, that he might see his army defile in 
their glittering uniforms before him ; an insubstan- 
tial picture — mere shadows on glass, showing in a 
most striking emblem, how the glory of this world 
passeth away. But Washington had retired from 
his armies ; throughout the land, 

" Glad Peace was tinkling in the farmer's bell, 
And singing with the reapers:" 

and he had no regret in his hour of departure. 
Can we scarcely refrain from allowing to that 
hour, the unutterable splendour of an apotheosis? 
He had fought his warfare ; he had left his testi- 
mony for the rights of men, and obedience to Hea- 
ven ; and is it too much to imagine him looking, 
at his last moment, toward Heaven, with his dying 
eyes, and exclaiming with chastened rapture : — 

" What means yon blaze on high'? 
The empyrean sky, 
Like the rich veil of some proud fane is rending ; 

I see the star-paved land, 

Where all the angels stand. 
Even to the highest height, in burning rows ascending ;• 

Some with their wings outspread, 

And bowed the stately head, 
As on some errand of God's love departing, 
Like flames from evening conflagration starting; 
The heralds of Omnipotence are they, 
And nearer earth they come, to waft my soul away '." 






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